SoylentNews

takyon writes:

The closure of SlySoft is having a chilling effect on another commercial provider of copy protection circumvention software:

The company behind the popular DVDFab software has announced it will not be supporting decryption of the enhanced Advanced Access Content System (AACS) that will be used to protect new Ultra HD (4K UHD) Blu-ray discs. The announcement comes just a day after rival copying software company SlySoft confirmed its closure.

[...] Under pressure from AACS LA, a decryption licensing outfit founded by a group of powerful Hollywood movie studios and various technology partners, SlySoft first went dark and then announced its closure this week. And now, in the space of just a couple of days, another DVD/Blu-ray copying software company also appears to be feeling the heat.

[Continues.]

hubie writes:

At the Mobile World Congress this week, Flir Systems demonstrated the world's first thermal imaging smartphone. The Android-based Cat S60 Smartphone includes the Lepton longwave infrared (LWIR) imager (80 x 60 pixels).

"With the ability to visualize heat that is invisible to the naked eye, the Cat S60 allows users to measure surface temperature from a distance, detect heat loss around doors and windows, spot moisture and missing insulation, making it the ideal Smartphone for building professionals, electricians, and first responders."

Original Submission

HughPickens.com writes:

Alexander Burns and Maggie Haberman write in The New York Times that, with his enormous online platform of six million followers, Donald Trump has used Twitter to badger and humiliate those who have dared cross him during the presidential race, latching on to their vulnerabilities, mocking their physical characteristics, personality quirks and, sometimes, their professional setbacks. Trump has made statements that have later been exposed as false or deceptive — only after they have ricocheted across the Internet.

For example, Cheri Jacobus, a Republican political strategist, did not think she had done anything out of the ordinary: On a cable television show, she criticized Donald J. Trump for skipping a debate in Iowa in late January and described him as a "bad debater." Trump took to Twitter, repeatedly branding Jacobus as a disappointed job seeker who had begged to work for his campaign and had been rejected. "We said no and she went hostile," Trump wrote. "A real dummy!" Trump's campaign manager told the same story on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." For days, Trump's followers replied to his posts with demeaning, often sexually charged insults aimed at Jacobus, including several with altered, vulgar photographs of her face.

It is not just that Trump has a skill for zeroing in on an individual's soft spot and hammering at it. It is that he sets a tone of aggression against the person, and his supporters echo and amplify it. Jacobus sent a cease-and-desist letter to Trump and his top aide, citing electronic messages that showed the Trump campaign had courted her and not the other way around. "I have been trashed and ruined on Twitter," Jacobus says adding that Trump's lawyers had responded to her letter, but that they had not yet reached a resolution.

This week, Trump sent out a menacing message on Twitter about the Ricketts family, a wealthy clan of Republican political donors, after it was reported that Marlene Ricketts donated $3 million to a group opposed to Trump's candidacy. "They better be careful," Trump wrote of the family, "they have a lot to hide!" "It's a little surreal when Donald Trump threatens your mom," Marlene Ricketts's son, Tom, later told reporters.

"At what point does it cross the line into something that's defamatory and might be actionable?" says Parry Aftab, a lawyer who leads the Internet safety group WiredSafety. "At what point does it cross the line into encouraging violence against groups and individuals?"

Original Submission

takyon writes:

NPR's Robert Siegel interviewed Chris Urmson, the technical director of the Google self-driving car project. The article starts off by noting that people surveyed by Ford in India and China have shown much more positive interest than those in the U.S. and U.K. towards buying or riding in a self-driving vehicle. From the interview:

On why we need self-driving cars

It really starts with safety. In America, there's 33,000 people that are killed on the road every year, and to put that in perspective, that's equivalent of a 737 falling out of the sky five days a week. ... There is just a tremendous opportunity there to save lives — 94 percent of those accidents are due to human error, and the good news is we can build software and hardware that can see the road and pay attention all the time and react more quickly and keep people safe on the road. The other big aspect is accessibility. When you think about the baby boomer generation, they're starting to get to a point where they feel uncomfortable driving or their family feels uncomfortable about them driving. Making sure they have access to transportation, to continue to do all the things they do today — to go and visit their grandchildren or just to go to a coffee shop — we think that is an incredibly important use for this type of technology.

On the proposed regulations by California's Department of Motor Vehicles that self-driving cars have a licensed driver inside

We've always thought that having a driver in a vehicle while testing makes a tremendous amount of sense ... the whole point of the system is to have someone in the vehicle who can observe and keep things safe. But once the technology is actually out on the road, I think that it isn't the right answer. I think the idea is to give more people mobility, and by increasing the requirements on the person who's driving the vehicle when they should be doing less doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

On whether someone should be able to override the controls

It really depends what you mean by "take over controls." You wouldn't imagine that in the back of a taxi, we put an extra steering wheel or brake pedal there for the passenger to grab ahold of anytime. It would just be crazy to think about doing that. But at the same time, I could imagine that there are vehicles where most of the days you don't really want to drive it, so let it take you to and from work in the morning, for example, but on the weekend when you get a chance to get out onto some open road, that you might enjoy driving in that location. But I think the idea that you want the person to jump in who hasn't been paying attention or maybe had a couple of drinks with dinner and then jump in to override is probably not the right idea.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Many of the world's pollinating animals such as bees and butterflies are at risk of extinction, according to a new U.N. report that draws upon around 3,000 scientific papers. Pollinators contribute to hundreds of billions of dollars worth of agricultural activity annually:

A major global assessment of pollinators is raising concerns about the future of the planet's food supply. A U.N.-sponsored report drawing on about 3,000 scientific papers concludes that about 40 percent of invertebrate pollinator species (such as bees and butterflies) are facing extinction. Vertebrate pollinators (such as bats and birds) are somewhat better off by comparison — 16 percent are threatened with extinction, "with a trend towards more extinctions," the researchers say.

About 75 percent of the world's food crops, the report notes, depend at least partly on pollination. "Pollinators are important contributors to world food production and nutritional security," assessment co-Chair Vera Lucia Imperatriz-Fonseca says in a statement. "Their health is directly linked to our own well-being."

Crops that need help from pollinators include coffee, apples, cacao, cotton, mangoes and almonds, to name just a few. We're also talking big business: "The annual value of global crops directly affected by pollinators" ranges from $235 billion to $577 billion, according to the statement.

NPR's Dan Charles says the report "is largely based on studies in North America and Europe; there's been less research on pollinators in Africa and Asia." It was released by The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, which operates under U.N. auspices. The assessment cites about 3,000 scientific papers and, researchers say, "includes information about practices based on indigenous and local knowledge from more than 60 locations around the world." The report was presented by IPBES on Friday in Kuala Lumpur.

The report, "Thematic Assessment of Pollinators, Pollination and Food Production" will be available later this week.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

AT&T is suing the Louisville/Jefferson County Metro Government over an ordinance that, according to AT&T, permits third parties to perform work on AT&T's communications network. AT&T is seeking an injunction to restrain Louisville from enforcing the ordinance:

AT&T is suing to block the city of Louisville from moving forward with its plan to bring in the Google Fiber service. The telecoms giant filed a complaint [PDF] in federal court on Thursday seeking to prevent the Kentucky's largest city, and Jefferson County, from allowing Google's contractors to access utility poles in order to string fiber lines.

Earlier this month, the city passed an ordinance giving third party contractors, in this case contractors working for Google, right-of-way access to utility poles. The rule is seen as a vital component for launching the Google Fiber service in Louisville. AT&T (along with Time Warner Cable) has argued against the ordinance, saying that the contractors could cause damage to their existing lines when stringing up the new cables.

Failing to win over the city's Metro Council in a vote, AT&T has now taken the matter to the US District Court for Western Kentucky, alleging that the city's ordinance violates FCC rules on pole access and that Metro Council acted outside of its legal authority in passing the ordinance. "Under the new ordinance, where a third party seeks to attach equipment to a utility pole in the rights-of-way and AT&T already has lines or other equipment on the pole, the third party may remove, alter, and relocate AT&T's facilities as it deems necessary," AT&T says in its filing.

Google Fiber has released a blog post in support of Louisville:

We were heartened and encouraged when, a few weeks ago, the City of Louisville, Kentucky unanimously passed [PDF] an ordinance that paves the way for its residents having access to faster and better broadband. So yesterday when we heard that AT&T was suing the City of Louisville for passing this so-called "One Touch Make Ready" rule, we were disappointed.

[...] This work would be done by a team of contractors the pole owner itself has approved, instead of having multiple crews from multiple companies working on the same pole over weeks or months. One Touch Make Ready facilitates new network deployment by anyone—and that's why groups representing communities and fiber builders support it, too.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

BrewDog, a brewer in Ellon, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, has released all of its recipes for anyone to try to recreate:

Many of the classic BrewDog beers were developed during our home-brewing days, and we still use a 50L system to develop new beers and new recipes here at BrewDog. Home-brewing is very much ingrained in our DNA at BrewDog as so many of the world's great craft breweries can trace their origins back to home-brewing.

With DIY Dog we wanted to do something that has never been done before as well as paying tribute to our home-brewing roots. We wanted to take all of our recipes, every single last one, and give them all away for free, to the amazing global home-brewing community.

We have always loved the sharing of knowledge, expertise and passion in the craft beer community and we wanted to take that spirit of collaboration to the next level.

So here it is. The keys to our kingdom. Every single BrewDog recipe, ever. So copy them, tear them to pieces, bastardise them, adapt them, but most of all, enjoy them. They are well travelled but with plenty of miles still left on the clock. Just remember to share your brews, and share your results. Sharing is caring.

The PDF is around 21.4 MB and 226 pages long. It lists all the ingredients, yeast strains, temperatures, original gravity targets, etc. needed to brew their beers, as well as food pairings, brewing tips, and other side notes.

Also at The Register .

Original Submission

Appalbarry writes:

In a story right out of dystopian science fiction, a small town council in Canada wants to inject GPS tracking devices into people considered to be problem criminals:

A B.C. community is taking a page out of dystopia science fiction novels with a new approach to battling crime: track criminals using injected microchips.

Williams Lake city council voted unanimously on Tuesday on a proposal to inject high-risk offenders with a GPS tracking device.

"Whether they're walking downtown, whether they're having a bath, whether they're having dinner, we don't care. We want to know where they are and what they're doing," Williams Lake Coun. Scott Nelson, who introduced the motion, told CTV Vancouver.

Council members don't seem concerned about civil rights questions, or the fact that (apparently) the technology doesn't exist yet. And keep in mind, the idea is to inject people who might commit a crime!

Original Submission

AnonTechie writes:

Mercedes hired humans to replace robots on the production line of its plant in Sindelfingen, Germany. When it comes to assembling highly-customized autos, robotic workers can't yet match the dexterity and decision-making abilities of real people.

Chalk up a win for humanity. In spite of futurists’ predictions that automation will slowly replace most people’s jobs, there are still plenty of jobs at which robots are no match for humans. And one of those jobs, as it turns out, is assembling customized Mercedes S-Class sedans.

It’s not that robots aren’t hard workers, or that they aren’t reliable on the assembly line. Robots are particularly good at performing predefined tasks over and over again, and have been widely used in the auto industry since the 1940s, when Ford introduced autonomous machines onto its assembly line.

But robots aren’t good at customizing parts and making decisions on the assembly line, which is why Mercedes decided to hire more skilled human workers to staff its plant in Sindelfingen, Germany.

The Christian Science Monitor

[Also Covered By]:

• Bloomberg - Mercedes Boots Robots From the Production Line
• Engadget - Mercedes replaces robots with people on its assembly line
• The Guardian - Mercedes-Benz swaps robots for people on its assembly lines
• The Register - Humans – 1 Robots – 0: Mercedes deautomates production lines

Original Submission

Two Soylentils sent in news about passive Wi-Fi.

takyon writes:

Computer scientists and electrical engineers at the University of Washington have created a device that can transmit Wi-Fi packets "passively" by reflection and absorption. The system uses 0.01% of the power required by conventional Wi-Fi, transmits at bit rates up to 11 Mbps, and can communicate with existing devices at ranges up to 100 feet:

Computer scientists and electrical engineers have demonstrated that it's possible to generate Wi-Fi transmissions using 10,000 times less power than conventional methods. The new Passive Wi-Fi system also consumes 1,000 times less power than existing energy-efficient wireless communication platforms, such as Bluetooth Low Energy and Zigbee. "We wanted to see if we could achieve Wi-Fi transmissions using almost no power at all," says coauthor Shyam Gollakota, assistant professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington. "That's basically what Passive Wi-Fi delivers. We can get Wi-Fi for 10,000 times less power than the best thing that's out there."

Passive Wi-Fi can for the first time transmit Wi-Fi signals at bit rates of up to 11 megabits per second that can be decoded on any of the billions of devices with Wi-Fi connectivity. These speeds are lower than the maximum Wi-Fi speeds but 11 times higher than Bluetooth. [Note: this appears to refer to the 1 Mbps "basic rate" of Bluetooth.]

[...] The Passive Wi-Fi architecture assigns the analog, power-intensive functions—like producing a signal at a specific frequency—to a single device in the network that is plugged into the wall. An array of sensors produces Wi-Fi packets of information using very little power by simply reflecting and absorbing that signal using a digital switch. In real-world conditions, researchers found the passive Wi-Fi sensors and a smartphone can communicate even at distances of 100 feet between them.

[...] The researchers will present a paper (pdf) describing their results in March at the 13th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation. The National Science Foundation, the University of Washington, and Qualcomm funded the work.

University of Washington.

[Continues.]

legont writes:

Boston Globe reports:

Original Submission

martyb writes:

According to SpaceFlight Now, SpaceX's SES-9 launch was again aborted in the final minutes. That launch was, in itself, originally planned for Wednesday February 24, 2016.

As of this writing, no new launch date/time has been announced. Per SES's Twitter feed: SES and SpaceX are now targeting to launch #SES9 on Sunday, 28 February, at 6.46pm ET, with a backup date on Monday, 29 February. (Hat tip to gman003.)

What's the problem? Well, for one, this IS rocket science. For background, please refer to the eminently-readable explanation written by Space Shuttle Flight Engineer Don Pettit: The Tyranny of the Rocket Equation. Overcoming Earth's gravity takes a lot of energy. The greater the payload and/or the altitude, the more fuel and oxidizer you need to get there. But, that has its own mass, which requires even more power to lift. In short, something like 90%-95% of the rocket's launch mass ends up being fuel and oxidizer.

The SES-9 communications satellite is destined for GTO (Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit) That is much higher than LEO (Low Earth Orbit) where, for example, the ISS (International Space Station) orbits. The Falcon-9 is designed to deliver up to 4.85 mT (4850 kg) to GTO. This is where things get interesting. SES-9 comes in at a hefty 5330 kg — 480 kg over nominal lift capacity to that altitude. So, the challenge becomes how can SpaceX get something so massive to such a high orbit?

SpaceX has found a way to increase the lifting capacity of the Falcon-9 by using fuel and liquid oxygen that have undergone additional chilling. How does that help? The SpaceFlight Now article explains it well:

[Continues.]

takyon writes:

Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg has asked his employees to stop crossing out "Black Lives Matter" and replacing it with "All Lives Matter" on the company's wall. The physical wall inside one of Facebook's buildings in Menlo Park, CA, allows employees to write and share various thoughts:

In an internal memo obtained by Gizmodo, Zuckerberg said he was disappointed by the "several recent instances of people crossing out 'black lives matter' and writing 'all lives matter' on the walls at MPK." MPK, one of Facebook's buildings in Menlo Park, Calif., has a wall reminiscent of the early days of Facebook for employees to write their thoughts.

The memo in full:

There have been several recent instances of people crossing out "black lives matter" and writing "all lives matter" on the walls at MPK.

Despite my clear communication at Q&A last week that this was unacceptable, and messages from several other leaders from across the company, this has happened again. I was already very disappointed by this disrespectful behavior before, but after my communication I now consider this malicious as well.

There are specific issues affecting the black community in the United States, coming from a history of oppression and racism. 'Black lives matter' doesn't mean other lives don't -- it's simply asking that the black community also achieves the justice they deserve.

We've never had rules around what people can write on our walls -- we expect everybody to treat each other with respect. Regardless of the content or location, crossing out something means silencing speech, or that one person's speech is more important than another's. Facebook should be a service and a community where everyone is treated with respect.

This has been a deeply hurtful and tiresome experience for the black community and really the entire Facebook community, and we are now investigating the current incidents.

I hope and encourage people to participate in the Black@ town hall on 3/4 to educate themselves about what the Black Lives Matter movement is about.

Original Submission

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

El Reg reports

Linux users are piling on Microsoft after the long-neglected Skype client on the open-source OS suddenly lost the ability to join calls from other versions of the software.

Since [February 22], users running the latest Linux build of Skype have been unable to chat to friends who are using Skype for OS X and Windows, it appears.

Fed up with this situation, Dutch student Nick Vernij and his pal Lem Severein decided to call attention to the issue by setting up a webpage. Here, they take Microsoft to task for the latest headache to befall Skype for Linux, which was last updated in June 2014.

"We do understand that Linux is a competitor of Microsoft's Windows. But we do not understand why this results in a lack of support for Skype", the pair's online protest states.

"Linux is actively being used by power users who can not or do not want to use Windows because of a lack of features, and now, those (paying) users who used Skype for both Business and Private purposes are dropped by Skype."

What are Soylentils using in place of Skype? What's missing from that alternative?

Original Submission

Bytram (with the assistance of MrPlow on IRC) submitted:

Here’s a tricky task. Pick a photograph from the Web at random. Now try to work out where it was taken using only the image itself. If the image shows a famous building or landmark, such as the Eiffel Tower or Niagara Falls, the task is straightforward. But the job becomes significantly harder when the image lacks specific location cues or is taken indoors or shows a pet or food or some other detail.

Nevertheless, humans are surprisingly good at this task. To help, they bring to bear all kinds of knowledge about the world such as the type and language of signs on display, the types of vegetation, architectural styles, the direction of traffic, and so on. Humans spend a lifetime picking up these kinds of geolocation cues.

So it’s easy to think that machines would struggle with this task. And indeed, they have.

Today, that changes thanks to the work of Tobias Weyand, a computer vision specialist at Google, and a couple of pals. These guys have trained a deep-learning machine to work out the location of almost any photo using only the pixels it contains.

Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600889/google-unveils-neural-network-with-superhuman-ability-to-determine-the-location-of-almost/

Paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/1602.05314

Original Submission